So, let me get this straight: you want us to never forget how Fauci's rather temporary skepticism about ad-hoc masks was well-founded & was shared by a fair amount of the public health community at that time, given how little data about a novel coronavirus we had, & how, in short order, we realized - due to there being more data - that N-95 & surgical-grade masks weren't necessary for protection against the virus as any old physical cloth covering would be sufficient for providing a statistically-significant benefit, thereby leading Fauci & others to promptly update their messaging?
Here's a video from March by a private citizen in the Czech Republic about why people should wear masks, and how to make cloth ones at home:
The Czech government heeded the campaign's advice, mandated mask-wearing in public and avoided a first wave (400 deaths in total by September).
Here's the studies referenced in the video description on the effectiveness of mask-wearing in a pandemic:
- "We conclude that population-wide use of face masks could make an important contribution in delaying an influenza pandemic. Mask use also reduces the reproduction number, possibly even to levels sufficient for containing an influenza outbreak." Brienen, Nicole CJ, et al. "The effect of mask use on the spread of influenza during a pandemic." Risk Analysis: An International Journal 30.8 (2010): 1210-1218."
- "Any type of general mask use is likely to decrease viral exposure and infection risk on a population level, in spite of imperfect fit and imperfect adherence, personal respirators providing most protection." - van der Sande, M., Teunis, P., & Sabel, R. (2008). Professional and home-made face masks reduce exposure to respiratory infections among the general population. PLoS One, 3(7).
- "However, during a severe pandemic when use of face masks might be greater, pandemic transmission in households could be reduced." MacIntyre, C. R., Cauchemez, S., Dwyer, D. E., Seale, H., Cheung, P., Browne, G., ... & Ferguson, N. (2009). Face mask use and control of respiratory virus transmission in households. Emerging infectious diseases, 15(2), 233.
- Davies, A., Thompson, K. A., Giri, K., Kafatos, G., Walker, J., & Bennett, A. (2013). Testing the efficacy of homemade masks: would they protect in an influenza pandemic?. Disaster medicine and public health preparedness, 7(4), 413-418.
Here's an article from February showing that it was known back then that Covid was influenza-like and spread via aerosol infection.
Here's another article from March about the government of Thailand mandating mask usage and encouraging people to make cloth masks at home to alleviate shortages. Here's an article from the New York Times in July titled
"No-one Knows What Thailand is Doing Right, but So Far, It's Working" ("Can the country's low rate of coronavirus infections be attributed to culture? Genetics? Face masks? Or a combination of all 3?")
The grotesque incompetence and cynicism of western governments and public health officials like Fauci, who either were so utterly ignorant as to miss what Chinese doctors, the Thailand government and a Czech social media influencer knew, or were cynical enough not to care about hundreds of thousands of people dying if dissimulating to the public about the efficacy of masks protected PPE stockpiles, chills my blood. CDC and WHO advice, and NHS advice in my own country, killed hundreds of thousands of people. They ed up. It should be the greatest public health scandal of our lifetime, but the Faucis of the world will skate on by because no-one has interest in holding accountable these despicable idiots, supposed experts who we put trust in to keep us safe and failed us.
And yeah, Trump made everything worse, but that's a very low bar for a doctor to clear.
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